Not long ago, President Joe Biden vowed that the U.S. would “counter democratic backsliding by imposing costs for coups” in Africa. But three weeks after a military mutiny in Africa involving U.S.-trained officers, the Pentagon refuses to call the takeover in Niger a coup d’état.
After a Nigerien junta, which calls itself the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Fatherland, seized power on July 26 and detained the democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, France and the European Union immediately called it a coup. But weeks later, in public statements and responses to The Intercept, Pentagon officials have repeatedly stopped short of using that word.
“Not calling a coup a coup not only undermines our credibility but harms our long-term interests in these states.”
“Not calling a coup a coup not only undermines our credibility but harms our long-term interests in these states,” said Elizabeth Shackelford, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and lead author on a forthcoming report on U.S. military aid in Africa. “We have legal prohibitions on providing security assistance to juntas for a reason. It’s not in our long-term national interest to do so.”
U.S. coup legislation, specifically Section 7008 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, specifies that any country whose “duly elected head of government is deposed by a military coup d’état or decree” will be automatically prohibited from receiving a broad package of congressionally appropriated foreign assistance. The Pentagon’s reluctance to call a coup a coup may be aimed at preserving the ability to continue providing security assistance to military-ruled Niger.
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh was pressed earlier this week about why the United States has not called the takeover a coup. “It certainly looks like an attempted coup here,” she said. “We have assets and interests in the region, and our main priority is protecting those interests and protecting those of our allies. So a designation like what you’re suggesting certainly changes what we’d be able to do in the region and how we’d be able to partner with Nigerien military.”
While calling a three-week-old coup no more than an attempt, Singh was clear about why the U.S. might be reticent to sever relations with the junta. “Niger is a partner and we don’t want to see that partnership go,” she said. “We’ve invested, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars into bases there, trained with the military there.”
Since 2012, U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $500 million on that partnership, making it one of the largest security assistance programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Niger hosts one of the largest and most expensive drone basesrun by the U.S. military. Built in the northern city of Agadez at a price tag of more than $110 million and maintained to the tune of $20 to $30 million each year, Air Base 201 is a surveillance hub and the linchpin of an archipelago of U.S. outposts in West Africa. It is home to Space Force personnel, a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment, and a fleet of drones, including armed MQ-9 Reapers.
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Nick Turse is a contributing writer for The Intercept, reporting on national security and foreign policy. He is the author, most recently, of “Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead: War and Survival in South Sudan,” as well as “Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa,” and “Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.” He has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, and Village Voice, among other publications. He has received a Ridenhour Prize for Investigative Reporting, a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Turse is a fellow at The Nation Institute and the managing editor of TomDispatch.com.
